used xfx 6990 vs. new gtx 580

[Amarthfea]

so I've been thinking about switching to nvidea since i've never owned any, but i always see amd deals.
now when i'm waiting for christmas deals for a gtx580, i see used xfx 6990 come up for 600.

think its a steal, or should i still go with a gtx 580, or wait even. oh temptation.

i still get 40 + frames on bf3 on medium with the 2 4870x2's..

advice?

[GT7R]

I you can wait about +- 3 months for the next-gen high end cards then do so, you won't regret it.
But about your choices - I would get the single 580 which also still should hold it's value for some time. The 6990 will be 40% faster but 400% less stable. At least thats my take.

[OmegaRED]

Well I've got the XFX 6990 and BF3 is my most played game though at $600 it's not exactly an incredible deal to sway you from Nvidia. I would only buy the 580 if you planned on going SLI in the future in which case it would be awesome. If you just want to stick with one card then the 6990 is for you and you will be very happy with it; it will beat everything up to the 7990. The card rips up every game I have and I only added a 6970 for Tri-Fire so I could push 120fps at 4MSAA in BF3 otherwise the 6990 did great.

XFX has transferable warranty too which is a nice plus and the overclocking bios switch is covered under warranty

[Arinoth]

Technically speaking the 6990 will beat out the 580 in almost everything as it is essentially 2 6970s in Xfire, whereas you'd be running ONE 580. Typically I'm not a big advocate for AMD these days (drivers), but if you're pitting a dual card vs a single card for price point, you'd be a fool to not go with the 6990.

[Amarthfea]

to be honest, its the amd drivers that have put me off of them as well.. they only seem to care about current gen and stop doing any good support for the previous gen. and they are always super late.

thanks everyone, I needed some rational thinking there

the new, "oh shiny" factor gets me every time.